At golf clubs, it is common for management to provide beverage carts. Beverage carts typically take the form of golf carts from which beverages are sold. A beverage server drives the cart onto the golf course, and sells and serves beverages to players on the course. Beverage carts may also be employed in other circumstances.
Typically, beverages sold from the beverage cart are sold in cans or bottles. The reason for this practice is that serving unpackaged beverages requires a cooling container and dispenser that can fit on the cart and that can function properly despite being outside in the heat for the whole day, and despite the cooling being un-powered by electricity, fossil fuels, or the like. Regarding beer, draft beer is generally preferred by beer drinkers as it is fresher, and contains fewer preservatives. However, prior art beer dispensers for use on beverage carts generally have not been able to keep draft beer cold for an extended period of time.
One problem with prior art devices is that, after a couple of hours, the beverage becomes warm. In typical beverage cooling containers, the beverage is stored, prior to cooling, in storage containers that are connected to a pressure canister. The pressure of the gas from the canister drives the beverage out of the storage containers into hoses that connect the storage containers to the cooling container. Generally, the cooling container has, associated with it, dispensing means such as taps for dispensing the cooled beverage.
The beverage then enters the beverage cooling container and travels through a beverage chilling container, such as a metal coil, positioned in the container. The cooling container contains a chilling agent, usually in the form of ice water, because ice water draws heat from the coils more effectively than solid ice (e.g. in the form of ice cubes or other types of ice pieces). The coil provides a circuitous rather than straight-line path to the taps, thus increasing the traveling distance of the beverage through the ice water and giving the beverage more time to cool. The coil is connected to a tube through which the beverage flows to one or more taps, from which it is dispensed.
This typical prior art system tends to work well for a short time, but then the beverage being dispensed becomes warm. This is a serious problem not only because warm beer is unpleasant to drink. It is also a problem because warm beer delivered under pressure will foam, making it undrinkable. The result of such warming is a substantial amount of wasted beer, which is costly for the entity that is selling the beer.
The reason that the typical prior art system does not keep the beer cool for a long enough time is as follows. When ice water is used as the cooling agent, the ice will melt over time, and the amount of liquid water increases. Ice typically floats near the surface of water. Thus, practically, as the ice melts, water without ice fills the bottom of the container, while the remaining ice sits at the top of the container, floating in the water. After a couple of hours, as the ice melts, the coils cease to be in contact with ice (which floats at the surface), and instead are only in contact with water. This water is warm relative to the original ice water, and the beverage being dispensed becomes unacceptably warm as a result.